Tom grinned. “See, Aunt Ellie, that’s a ‘prescriptive rule.’ Bas Aarts would say my sentence is fine. ‘Me’ in subject coordination is common in informal English.”

Dr. Eleanor Marsh, a retired editor whose pulse still quickened at a misplaced apostrophe, had just received two gifts. One was a bottle of expensive Chianti. The other was a brand-new copy of Oxford Modern English Grammar by Bas Aarts.

“Alright,” she said, pouring more wine. “What about the passive voice? ‘Mistakes were made’?”

“Cover to cover. It’s a noun phrase goldmine. Listen.” He pointed his fork. “You know the ‘split infinitive’? The thing you yelled at me for in 2005? Aarts points out that it’s been used by good writers since the 13th century. ‘To boldly go’ isn’t an error—it’s a style choice .”

Eleanor felt the floor of her linguistic universe tilt. She had spent forty years wielding who/whom like a sword. Now Aarts’s book sat on the sideboard, its calm blue cover a quiet rebellion.

“ My team and I ,” Eleanor corrected, before she could stop herself. The ghost of old habits.